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I'd contend that we are a long way away from the "knowledge economy" much vaunted by the likes of Enda Kenny and chums. What we have in Ireland is a mainly young population who are really good at passing exams but have never been encouraged to express their intellectual creativity. Couple this with our archaic telecommunications network and it looks like there is little hope of us ever developing one. South Korea, a paragon of Capitialist endeavour, has universal fibre connections to every household provided by the state. This allows the clever entreprenurial types there to share information and resources which has enabled them to devlop a genuine knowledge economy and indigenous industry. Technology is everywhere there from personalised advertising hoardings in train stations to Starcraft players who treated as premiership footballers. So long as Ireland's telecoms system is held by private business and a Capitalist administration do little about it then we will always lag behind more progressive countries.
There are few opportunities for employment in Irish owned IT companies for those with the skills and knowledge. Most of these so called "knowledge economy" jobs are in multinational corporations and at the very lowest end of the scale e.g. call centres. These types of jobs add little to the economy in real terms. Tech-wise manufacturing is where it is at. We don't do much of that here, even multinational Intel are producing less at their much adored Leixlip plant.
What we need in Ireland to generate a real "knowledge economy" is a population educated in the necessary skills like programming, development, electronics etc. with the proper infrastructure to enable them to prosper. We need fewer desk jockeys with headsets telling customers on the far side of the world to download drivers and the like and more people able to get under the desk and fiddle about with a torch in their mouth and a couple of screwdrivers.

Here's an update regarding the cider from my own apples. It turns out two trees will make loads and loads. I used one tray from the salad crisper thingy in the fridge full of apples (maybe 5 kilo) to make 25 litres by diluting it with warm water. The colour and the flavour seem about right. However, despite filtering the cider twice before bottling some of the bottles have a lot of sediment in them. They should be ready for chilling tomorrow or Friday so should I unbottle them and filter again or should I just leave well alone? They're in plastic, screw top bottles so unbottling wouldn't be a big deal financially but it would be a pain in the arse.

This review originally appeared in the August 2013 edition of Saoirse - Irish Freedom.
From The Earth, A Cry: The Story of John Boyle O’Reilly Ian Kenneally (The Collins Press) In his well written and researched biography of John Boyle O’Reilly author Ian Kenneally gives a compelling account of the extraordinary life and deeds of a truly remarkable man who found fame as a Fenian leader, a prison escaper, a poet, journalist and friend of the downtrodden everywhere. O’Reilly was born in Dowth Co. Meath in 1844 during the Great Hunger, however as his father was a school master and his mother the manager of a private orphanage the family escaped the full horror of that terrible time, though there can be little doubt that, as with the rest of that generation, the conditions of the country during his childhood affected him for the rest of his life. O’Reilly senior was a great collector of books, especially historical ones, a trait he passed on to his son whose childhood hero was Robert Emmet. Not unusually for the time John began an apprenticeship at aged 11 as a printer on the local paper the Drogheda Argus, the beginning of a long association with newspapers. The Argus was a weekly which supported the Tenant League, then being organised by former Young Irelanders. At 15 O’Reilly moved to England to lodge with his mother’s sister Crissy in the then booming textile town of Preston which had a strong Irish immigrant community. There he found work at the Preston Guardian newspaper, first as a printer but later as a reporter. He established himself in a few short years as a well known and like figure in the town joining several sporting clubs and forming an amateur theatrical group. Events at home still touched the young newspaperman. With the establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians, in 1858 England’s long occupation of Ireland began to be once again challenged in a coordinated manner. O’Reilly’s older brother William was an early member, in fact he was later to die in prison, and it is likely that John also joined an English based Fenian circle as in 1860 he certainly joined the local militia regiment and the Republican Movement had then a policy of attempting to infiltrate the British military in this fashion. A diligent and enthusiastic part-time soldier the popular Irishman was quickly promoted to an N.C.O. However in 1863 he suddenly resigned his position at work and returned to Ireland to enlist in the regular army, the elite 10th Hussars, a cavalry unit based first in Dundalk and later Cahir during O’Reilly’s time. Both towns were then and since republican strongholds. Although his friend John Devoy was later to write that O’Reilly only began serious work for the Movement in 1865 it appears likely that his sudden change in lifestyle was due to the promise of imminent insurrection in Ireland. Unfortunately a planned rising for 1865 was scuppered when Dublin Castle moved first and arrested most of the republican leadership, ironically O’Reilly was to be part of the military guard over O’Donovan Rossa. Attempts were made by John Devoy to rebuild the Movement and O’Reilly quickly became an important organiser of those trying to subvert the British garrison in Dublin. Again the British acted first and O’Reilly and hundreds of others found themselves prisoners. After a court-martial during which the chief witness was Head-constable Talbot an undercover police agent who had pretended to be pro-republican, O’Reilly was found guilty of plotting mutiny and sentenced to 20 years penal servitude. Moved around several English prisons the ex-soldier quickly gained a reputation as an unruly prisoner, making at least 3 escape attempts. So when in 1867 following the much delayed Fenian Rising the government decided to transport known “ring leaders” to Australia O’Reilly was amongst those chosen. 62 Fenians together with 220 ordinary convicts held separately were transported on the Hougoument to Freemantle Western Australia. On board the humane captain treated his Irish prisoners well and they even managed to produce a ships journal “The Wild Goose” to which O’Reilly contributed some poems. However once in the penal colony the prisoners were exposed to the full rigours of the Victorian prison system where the convicts were subject to whatever cruel whim a warder could think of. Keanneally gives an example of a warder who taking a dislike to Boyle O’Reilly showed him an envelope with a black border addressed to him from Ireland. Knowing his mother to be ill O’Reilly correctly assumed that it was notice of her death but the warder then announced that he was holding back the prisoners’ mail for six months as “punishment” and so left him in distress all that time. Such pettiness drove O’Reilly to despair, Keanneally suggests he was suicidal at one point but then his education came to his aid. Transferred to a works gang party in the Bush the warder in charge needed a clerk to do the paperwork and O’Reilly filled the position. This new job entailed some travel back and forth to the supply depot, escape was not worried about as there was nowhere to escape to. With this new found semi-freedom the convict-clerk met and became friendly with the local Catholic priest, Cavan born Fr. Patrick McCabe and through him Irish emigrant James Maguire. Both these men soon agreed to help their countryman in a bid for freedom. The plan was for O’Reilly to be smuggled aboard an American whaling ship then in harbour whose captain the patriotic priest had bribed. By bad luck on the very night of the planned escape another prisoner slipped out of the work party and such was the hue and cry that the whaler sailed off without its clandestine passenger but with McCabe’s money! However, Maguire hid his desperate friend with some of his relatives until another’s ship’s captain could be approached and this man, Captain Gifford of The Gazelle, proved more steady and took the fugitive on board, taught him the trade of whaling and eventually saw to it that he arrived on the dock of Philadelphia a freeman and world famous. With little more than the clothes he stood up in the ex-prisoner began to give lectures on his adventures to date in order t support himself. In an age before cinema the educational lecture was a popular pastime and Boyle O’Reilly continued to do this type of work for the rest of his life. Through this activity he met Patrick Donahoe the owner of Boston’s “The Pilot” newspaper who offered him a job and such was his talent that before long he was editor of this paper, one of the most widely circulated in America. Secure in his position as a newspaper editor O’Reilly used the pages of the paper to champion not just the cause of Ireland but that of all people he though of as oppressed. Over the following years “The Pilot” would lead crusades for workers rights, equality for black Americans and even the most unpopular cause of the rights of American Indians. Such was O’Reilly’s skill as an orator that he was frequently asked to speak on civil rights platforms on the subject of race relations and he became a firm friend of Frederick Douglass the great anti-slavery leader. Strangely one civil rights issue O’Reilly spoke against was women’s suffrage on the grounds that politics was such a grubby, violent field that women should stay clear of it. All his life he had tended to idolise women, his mother, his aunt Crissy and later his wife, however this did not stop him employing women writers at “The Pilot” and uniquely for the time at equal pay to the men. Although never forgetting the cause of Irish liberty O’Reilly had ceased to be an active member of American Fenianism because of the organisation’s seeming obsession with invading Canada. But when contacted by his old friend John Devoy, by then also in America, about a planned rescue pf the remaining Fenian prisoners in Australia he readily offered his help and it was largely the contacts he had made while whaling during his own escape that led to the successful rescue in 1874 of 6 prisoners from Freemantle by the Fenian crewed Catalpa disguised as a whaler He was also to later become one of the most effective fund raisers in the United States for the Land League. Outside of politics and journalism the multitalented Meathman was also highly successful in the field of literature publishing two novels and four volumes of poetry. One small quibble with Keanneally’s biography is that he doesn’t reproduce some of his subject’s poems in full. He also remained interested in sport writing a boxing manual and founding Gaelic sports clubs in Boston as well as being involved in sword fencing and canoeing clubs. Sadly John Boyle O’Reilly died in 1890 at the young age of 46. As perhaps with all great men who die young there was some controversy over his death with theories ranging from suicide to skulduggery on the part of his enemies however, as a doctor was actually with O’Reilly when he died because his wife coincidently happened to be ill there can be little doubt that the cause of death was a massive heart attack. Ian Kenneally does a fine job bringing to life the story of this remarkable figure whose story reads in part as almost fictional in its adventures and achievements. George Grivas

Just a reminder that this is tomorrow folks and I hope to see as many of you there as possible. There will be a draw that evening in support of the Republican Garden, tickets on sale now €2 each or a book of 3 for €5.

Just to give you all a little follow up on how I got on with my Magnum cider, it tasted pretty good (what little of it I got to taste). I went on holidays after bottling it and left it in the care of my father. When I got back the cider fairies had visited and most of it had mysteriously vanished. I found the flavour to be more like an English cider rather than the Bulmers/Magners that you get here; there was more of a bite to it. It also seemed to be very strong compared to over the counter stuff. I drank a litre bottle of it one night and I found myself a bit giddy (and I'm no lightweight).
So now that all of my first batch has been consumed I currently have another bubbling away that should be ready for bottling on Sunday or Monday. Then next weekend I plan on starting a batch from my own apples. I don't have a clue how that will turn out or even how much juice I will get from 2 trees.

Siphony siphon, bottlely bottle, capeddy cap cap. Muwha ha ha! This is how Jesus must have felt at the Wedding Feast of Cana.
And on the eighth day Moogie said "Let there be cider bottling. And yea there was cider bottling."

I have begun to ferment some cider from a kit this morning. I've been going about like a demented Paracelsus heating pots and stirring mysterious liquids while chuckling to myself. The batch is bubbling away nicely. It's a very satisfying process.

Here's a list of most of the leftist theory books in my collection. There are probably a few more but I tend to leave them in various rooms and then forget where I put them. I can't find my copy of Strachey's Theory and Practice of Socialism for instance and I would consider it recommended reading. Where you see a date that is the date of the edition I possess not the year of original printing. I have included Henry George's Progress and Poverty from 1879, even though it is not a Marxist work it was years ahead of its time back then and would still be considered pretty much left wing today. Left Book Club Anthology - Paul Laity A Faith to Fight For - John Strachey (LBC 1941) The Theory and Practice of Socialism - John Strachey (LBC 1936) A Programme for Progress - John Strachey (LBC 1940) On Communist Society - Marx, Engels, Lenin (Progress Publishers) On The Emancipation of Women - Lenin (PP) The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky - Lenin (PP) On Soviet Socialist Democracy - Lenin (PP) The Working Class -Vanguard Of The World Revolutionary Forces - Academy of Sciences of the USSR Institute of the International Working Class Movement (1970) The Theory and Practice of Communism - RN Carew Hunt (Pelican 1971) Reform or Revolution - Rosa Luxemburg (Pathfinder 1973) Politics and Class - edited by Neville Woodhead (GW&A Hesketh 1985) Inside The Whale and Other Essays - George Orwell (Penguin Books) The Socialist Tradition from Crisis to Decline - Carl Boggs (Routledge 1995) Renewing Socialism - Democracy, Strategy and Imagination - Leo Panitch (Westview 2001) Progress and Poverty - Henry George (Schalkenback 1998)

I just got the basic Magnum one from the home brew shop. With a cheap masher bucket thing and delivery it came in at £100. I reckon I'll have time to get one batch made using the kit before my own apples ripen. My parents have a couple of apple trees in their garden and they always have buckets upon buckets of them that go uneaten every year.
Anyone know where I could get some bottle labels for a laser printer?

I have just ordered a cider making kit. It will be a couple of months before my own apples are ready for pressing so that gives me time to make up a test batch using the forumla first. I'll let you know how I'm getting on. Some exclusive few of you may even get to sample an offering from Chateau Moogie.

I have a bit of a soft spot for old Boney and feel he gets a bad rap mainly due to British propaganda. Sure he was an imperialist but so too were his enemies and he was very progressive compared to say Czarist Russia, Spain and Britain. France at that time, even Imperial France, was seen by many as a progressive force that still maintained the Enlightenment. Many of those that opposed him did so from a reactionary position only. After Austerlitz (I think) he was cheered by the masses as he entered Vienna even though he had just crushed the Austrian army. Commentators at the time believed the enthusiasm of the crowd to be genuine. The French army promoted to the highest rank due to ability rather than the more common European system of the wealthy being able to buy position. Another of my favourite generals, Soult, enlisted as a private and rose to the rank of Marshall of The Empire the only rank above that was Emperor.
If only Napoleon could have seen what was happening to Marshall Ney on the left flank of Waterloo then all of history would have been changed. Ney was a genius cavalry commander that Napoleon himself dubbed "Le brave des braves" (the bravest of the brave) but he seems to have had little consideration for infantry. He led his troops into dozens of fruitless cavalry charges against well formed British squares which even the most novice of military history enthusiasts will tell you is asking for triouble. But he did lead from the front and he claimed that he had fired the last shot in Russia during the infamous 1812 retreat from Moscow. A couple of guns and a battalion of the Old Guard being masked by Ney's cavalry on that left flank would probably have won the day and the war for Napoleon at Waterloo.

Another series of books to look out for are those by Progress Publishers which were printed in Moscow in the 70s and 80s. I have a collection of essays by Marx, Engels and Lenin from them called On Communist Society. I also have a biography of Lenin that was written in 1932 by James Maxton. It is part of a series called Men of Destiny but I haven't seen any of the other titles, it would be interesting to see who else was considered a Man of Destiny back then.

Over the last few years I have been trawling the charity and second hand book shops of this land for various titles from the Left Book Club of the 1930s and 40s. You can spot them from their red or orange covers. They are fascinating reading and provide, in my opinion, a snapshot of the pure and unspoilt socialism of that period. Victor Gollancz, the LBC publisher, broke with the Communist Party of Great Britain after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Authors that contributed to the series include George Orwell, Clement Attlee and John Strachey.